Scott Roeder, the imprisoned convicted murderer of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, will face disciplinary action for making threats against abortion providers in a phone conversation with a member of the anti-choice terrorist group Army of God. In the conversation, which was recorded and posted to YouTube last month, Roeder and Iowa Army of God member David Leach discussed the opening of a new reproductive health clinic in Wichita at the same site as Dr. Tiller’s old clinic, and talked about violence that could potentially occur there, including the shooting of providers.

In the conversation, Roeder said that “eight [providers] have been shot, so we’ve got 92 to go,” referencing an anti-choice pastor who once claimed, according to Roeder, “If 100 abortionists were shot, [the surviving abortion providers] would probably go out of business.” Roeder also referred to Julie Burkhart, founder of the South Wind Women’s Clinic in Wichita, as “Julie Darkheart” and said, “For Julie Darkheart to walk back in there and reopen a murder mill where a man was stopped. It’s almost like putting a target on your back, saying, ‘Well, let’s see if you can shoot me!'”

Leach said that opening the clinic “is not the act of someone who values their own safety. It is a gauntlet thrown down, by someone who wants a fight. Of course, I don’t know if anyone will pick up the gauntlet.”

Leach claims he never meant for the conversation to constitute a threat. “That’s not exactly a call for that to happen,” Leach told the Des Moines Register in April. “Any reasonable person looking at that statement would not equate that with a call for action.”

Despite Leach’s assurances, however, the Kansas Department of Corrections is treating the recording as a serious threat. According to the Register, “[P]rison spokesman Jeremy Barclay said today that authorities plan to prosecute Roeder for violating a prison regulation against ‘threatening or intimidating any person,'” an action they consider a “top violation.” Among the punishments he may face are the loss of privileges and access to visitors or outsiders.

There continues to be concern about new anti-choice terrorism plots, even among individuals who have been jailed for previous actions or threats. Angel Dillard, another Kansas abortion opponent, frequently visited Roeder before she was jailed for threatening a provider. It has been alleged that Dillard has attempted from prison, to recruit others to continue harassment, threats, and possibly even violence.

As of this writing, the sole comment on this article on the Des Moines Register website is a defense of Roeder from someone claiming to be Donald Spitz. Spitz, who runs the Army of God website, has referred to Roeder as an “American hero” and solicits letters and donations on his behalf. “I like Scott Roeder and he should have free speech rights. He didn’t threaten anyone. This is not right,” reads the comment, which then quotes scripture.

Surprising as it seems, a host of anti-choicers have demonstrated a clear tilt toward population control when it comes to Muslims. Indeed, it seems apparent that, for them, racism and Islamophobia trump unbridled procreation for Mohammed’s adherents.

Just three days into 2013, Annika Rydh, a Swedish government official from the town of Almhult, issued a shrill call to both her colleagues and neighbors. Worried about the perceived growth of the Muslim population in her homeland and beyond, she urged the European Union “to act by having some kind of restriction, like the one-child policy in China.” If Muslims don’t like the proposed rule, she continued, they can go back where they came from.

Rydh’s appeal comes on the heels of a decade-long campaign to curtail Muslim immigration into western countries and reduce the number of babies born to Muslim families. International in scope, the anti-Islam movement relies on scare tactics that, more often than not, imply that the Judeo-Christian traditions are in danger of being trampled by Sharia law.

Joseph D’Agostino of the virulently anti-abortion Population Research Institute makes the case: “Because Christians and Jews are refusing to have children, refusing to get married, and having such low birth rates, the Muslims are going to inherit the earth.”

His boss, PRI founder Steven W. Mosher, goes even farther: “Many security experts have long believed that excessive population growth in Muslim countries is a national security threat to the west.”

And not to be outdone, Daniel Pipes’ Mideast Forum rails that “indigenous Europeans are dying out. Sustaining a population requires each woman on average to bear 2.1 children; in the European Union the overall rate is one-third short, at 1.5 a woman and falling… To keep its working population even, the EU needs 1.6 million immigrants a year. Into the void are coming Islam and Muslims. As Christianity falters, Islam is robust, assertive, and ambitious.” Pipes then goes on to posit reasons for the diminishing birthrate amongst people of traditional European backgrounds, blaming “the education of women, abortion on demand, and adults too self-absorbed to have children” for the alleged Muslim takeover.

“Islamization will happen,” Pipes writes, “for Europeans find it too strenuous to have children, stop illegal immigration, or even diversify their sources of immigrants. Instead, they prefer to settle unhappily into civilized senility.”

Lest you think Pipes can be summarily dismissed as little more than a ranting crackpot—or as someone who has himself succumbed to “civilized senility”—beware. Pipes is now a Taube Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, has taught at the University of Chicago and Harvard, and has served as an advisor to former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former President George W. Bush. What’s more, Pipes surrounds himself with fellow travelers including noted racist Pamela Geller and bloggers at sites including muslimpopulation.com, exposingliberallies.blogspot.com, FrontPageMagazine.com, and shariaunveiled.com.

And don’t forget the burgeoning population of anti-choice bedfellows. Surprising as it seems, a host of anti-choicers have demonstrated a clear tilt toward population control when it comes to Muslims. Indeed, it seems apparent that, for them, racism and Islamophobia trump unbridled procreation for Mohammed’s adherents.

“The Muslims have said they will destroy us from within,” Flip Benham of Operation Save America reports. “Today’s 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22 percent of the world’s population. ..Muslims will exceed 50 percent of the world’s population by the end of the century.”

Similarly, Donald Spitz’ Army of God advocates violence against abortion providers as well as against “satanic Muslims” and anti-choice candidates Randall Terry of Operation Rescue and Gary Boisclair of the Society for Truth and Justice coupled ending legal abortion with limiting Muslim immigration in their unsuccessful 2012 bids for elected office.

Ibrahim Hooper, Press Secretary of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, attributes the increasing hysteria over the purported rise of Islam to an age-old trend to demonize anything or anyone perceived as different. “Whenever a minority is targeted by bigots, they start by saying that ‘they’ are going to take over the world. It’s always the same language, and the bigots simply insert the offending group—at different times it has been Muslims, Jews, and Hispanics. In each case the opposition assigns the disliked group far more power than they actually have. The scary thing is that the folks that promulgate this irrational fear and hatred operate in a bubble of unreality that can’t be penetrated with truth, logic, or facts.”

Ah, yes, facts. According to Doug Saunders, author of The Myth of the Muslim Tide, [Vintage, 2012] “the family size of Muslim immigrant groups are converging fast with those of average westerners—faster, it seems, than either Catholic or Jewish immigrants did in their time. Muslims in France and Germany are now having only 2.2 children per family, barely above the national average. And while Pakistanis in Britain have 3.5 children each, their British-born daughters have only 2.5.”

As for the United States, Saunders writes that there are presently 2.6 million Muslims living in the 50 states, and while this number is expected to increase to 6.2 million by 2030, the overall Muslim population will still comprise just 1.7 percent of the total. In other words, 17 years from today, Muslims will account for the same proportion of the American body politic as Jews and Episcopalians.

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According to the Seattle Times, Scott Roeder – the man charged with first-degree murder for killing Dr. GeorgeTiller – has been communicating to people outside of prison, including sendingpamphlets that justify the murder of abortion doctors.

The article says,

"From his cell in Sedgwick County jail, Roeder has been sending anti-abortion pamphlets that laud Paul Hill, who was convicted of murdering an abortion provider in 1994, as an ‘American hero,’ and include examples of Hill’s writings about how the killing of abortion providers is justifiable."

The pamphlets were sent to Roeder from Rev. Donald Spitz, who runs agroup called "Army of God," whose website celebrates Paul Hill for his murder of Dr. John Bayard Britton and his bodyguard. Hill was executed in 2003.

So far, Roeder hasn’t been accused of breaking any laws with hiscorrespondence, although it’s not that questionable how far our first amendment rightsprotect one’s justifying and advocating the murder of others – especially whenyou’re already awaiting trial, accused of murder.

Allegedly local and federal law enforcement agencies "took seriously athreat Roeder made during a June 7 interview with The Associated Press thatthere are ‘many other similar events planned around the county as long asabortion remains legal.’" Roeder’s bond was subsequently raised to $20 million, but it isn’t clear what other steps have been taken. It’s feasible that otherswith views similar to Roeder’s might be driven to act.

Given the forewarning law enforcement agencies had of possible violenceagainst George Tiller before his murder, not much was done to prevent Tiller’s murder. Here’s hoping they’ve learned from their mistakes.